Question on job offers

so, basically I'm just looking for confirmation on something I'm already fairly sure of here, but I thought I'd ask. You have a callback with a firm and they tell you at the callback that they'll probably get back to you in mid-September. It is now almost October. Is it safe to assume you will not be receiving an offer? I'm fairly confident that is the case, but I thought I would check so that I can have my hopes officially dashed.

Yes, because we have a crystal ball here and can answer that question. What's with people looking for reassurance online. Didn't your mommy hug you enough? Maybe you get an offer, maybe not. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

A ding shouldn't be presumed yet. Basically, firms offered candidates who would have been overqualified pre-ITE. But a firm doesn't know how these kids are going to react to the offers--maybe the market is tight and they accept, maybe the firm overreached and they decline, whatever. So until the first round of offers come due, firms are sitting on borderline applicants. That's you. Good luck.

Yeah, because you know this firsthand. I love the lame speculation on here....

I know this first hand. The reasoning--that they're reaching up in their offers--is clear from the offer landscape, at my school anyway. The strategy--that firms are giving tiered offers and refraining from dinging/offering other candidates until the first offer set explodes--has been confirmed (to me personally, and to at least a couple others in my class) by a few different recruiters, with various degrees of directness (from "we're still considering your candidacy, but are waiting to see how our class shapes up" to "you'll have an answer from us when we get our answers from currently outstanding offers").

The other side of the coin, and this is plainly obvious though no one I know has heard it directly, is that nobody's taking chances on their yield--having your program oversubscribed is not a good scenario. Hence the controlled tiering.

Do I know that's what's going on with the OP's specific situation? Obviously not. But I'd put good money it, since the callback result lapse is generally a new phenomenon, so there probably aren't too many different reasons for it to happen.

I'd totally take Debevoise over S&C, not that I'd ever in a gazillion years have that choice to make.

Anyway, as for "playing games" v. "conservative business strategies" . . . obviously there is a rationale for firms tiering their offers. But there are two things that some firms are doing that make me feel like I wouldn't want to work for them even if I got an offer in the end.

The less irksome of the two is that when many people expected firms to maintain prior years callback/offer ratios (or have even better ones because of expense), many firms seem to have called back WAY more people than they reasonably needed to fill a second, third, or so on string of potential offers. I understand that they are trying to weed out the best candidates possible but callbacks are extremely time consuming, and even with the firm paying for travel expenses the little niceties of traveling really add up. I mean, I'm not going to present receipts for Starbucks, magazines, etc.

What is especially annoying, though, is that there's a lack of transparency about what firms are doing. I had only one firm tell me explicitly they are doing rolling offers, yet I seem to have ended up on a number of these supposed waitlists. Some firms can't be bothered to let you know your status even after candidates call or email. I mean, seriously, at that point they are just dicking you around. One shouldn't have to call after a month to be told that he's on a waitlist. People certainly shouldn't continue to get silence when they've let a firm know that they have impending acceptance deadlines. I understand that recruiters are busy but some of their behavior is just really rude, especially when you consider how much time is spent barraging the anointed first string offerees with complimentary communications.

I told OP my take on the situation. You called it "lame speculation." I cited to classmates, recruiters, and associates, then ATL confirmed it all five days later. Anyway, the fact that I know what I'm talking about isn't the point. The point is that you tried to call BS when I described a strategy that virtually EVERYONE involved with hiring this year knows about. Like I said on the 4th: the 2Ls know it, the recruiters are open about it and even the damn junior associates you knew from college will give you their takes on their firms' newfangled offer waitlists.

It made me when you you went but now I know that you were just . And I mean, I'm being sarcastic about it, but if you aren't involved this year then there's really no reason for you to have known that (though, "lame speculation"? Really?).

Well, if my firm was that TTT I'd hope for the best and accept another offer elsewhere if and when I received it. I wouldn't want to work for a firm that plays games like that.

But hey, that's just me.

Yowzers. Pretty bold statement to make. Observe:

You say you wouldn't work at one of these "game playing TTTs." I wouldn't work anywhere else. These "TTTs" are ranked all across Vault, from the V100 to the V5, and they include some especially healthy firms that have just chosen to be conservative ITE. The "game playing" is nothing more than a hiring schedule based on good business sense; it isn't remotely shady, or whatever it is that the phrase "game playing" might intone. And, lastly, with respect to the type of firm you're saying you would choose: a firm that doesn't carefully control its class size ITE is a firm that's setting itself up for oversubscription and subsequent no-offers (refer again to today's ATL article), so, with a few exceptions (WLRK and CSM come to mind), watch out for that.

Anyway, to speak to your ultimate point; if you got an offer at S&C, you'd be batshit crazy to turn it down for Debevoise just because Deb doesn't maintain an offer waitlist.